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Does leadership require humility?

Silly question, how could it not?  The simple truth is:

“People who are genuinely humble are

freed from the tyranny of their ego”

Really!?

What … Me?

Filled with ego?

Well we all have a little ego, do we not?

Does my ego actually get in the way?

I know it does make me seem as if I’m a know-it-all with all the answers; with a little humility I might actually start asking questions, maybe even the right questions.

I suppose when I’m filled with pride, I see the world as rosier than it really is… yeah, maybe I should be getting more of the facts; more importantly, maybe I should be facing the facts that I have now

Gut hunch and pride don’t really get along, do they?

Someone told me that I actually isolate myself by being so competitive – - that the name of the game is really teamwork, not hogging all the credit… that is why it is hard to get and keep good people: a little of my ego and they just want to keep moving on

Yes, I know: business is a collective collaboration, not my individual pursuit. And true, I can’t really do it all myself anyway, at least not anymore… business just moves too fast for me these days …and who can know all that needs to be  understood around here?

Command-and-control is what feels best to me, but what feels worst is feeling out of control… I need the collective knowledge of our team… I need to put more responsibility into the hands of my knowledge workers. I really have to let go and let them make a lot more of the on-the-spot decisions, for better or for worse. They are just as capable of learning as I am – - yikes, maybe even more so.

I know, I know – - I can’t really lead a team if I don’t have a team, and as long as I’m the one out there waving the flag all by myself, am I really leading anything except a long line of lemmings?

Get back you ego, get back!

Source:   LEVEL FIVE LEADERSHIP Gunn, Bob. Strategic Finance, Feb 2002, Vol. 83 Issue 8, p14-16

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 19th, 2010 at 1:04 am and is filed under Leadership. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.